Auctioning off condos - a neighborhood at a time
OK, maybe I'm jaded, but condo auctions, successful or not, are starting to lose their novelty. It's time for the next act.
So try this one on for size - auctions that focus not just an individual project, but span an entire neighborhood.
That, anyway, is the brainchild of Paul Sunshine, president of Domineum, a New York-based luxury condo marketing firm launched by his mom, Louise Sunshine, a veteran of the Trump empire.
Paul and Louise are fresh off an auctioning and marketing campaign that helped move 19 units at the Bryant for prices well above $1 million. Sounds good, but keep in mind that these numbers were still significantly below the original asking prices.
That said, the Bryant has picked up attention in other markets, including an article in the New York Daily News. And it may provide a model for developers in other markets sitting on deluxe - and largely empty - condo high-rises, Paul Sunshine noted in a chat we had yesterday.
Still, the auction concept still has a stigma attached to it - one that appears to be holding back developers not just in Boston, but across the country.
Frankly, it can make a developer look desperate, and no one wants to cry uncle first.
But there may be a way around that. Sunshine's ultimate dream is selling an entire neighborhood, or at least some choice parts of it.
And that, ironically, may prove an easier sell to some auction-wary developers.
Right now, say, in downtown Boston, there are three major new condo projects with hundreds of unsold units sitting on the market.
All probably would benefit from holding an auction, but none of these developers wants to take the first step and look like the desperate one of the pack.
Sunshine's idea is to cut through all that and have all the new projects, for example, in the Back Bay, contribute a portion of their units to one mass auction.
No one looks particularly desperate and the auction shifts from the merits of one project to the sale of an entire neighborhood.
It's also the kind of big picture sales pitch that would appeal to wealthy foreign buyers who might go gaga over the idea of buying into the Back Bay, but would be hard-pressed to rate the merits of an individual project.
Sounds like a long shot, but it's certainly an interesting idea.
